A Drunkard Brought to God

Source Name:

The Attributes of God: Volume Two (p. 176-177)

Source Author:

A. W. Tozer

A. W. Tozer told this story: "I knew a godly, praying woman whose husband, God bless him, was a drunkard. His stomach wouldn’t hold down his food, so he used to come home with his clothes dirty clear to his feet. I’m afraid I know what I would have done to him, but she didn’t. She prayed, cleaned him off and put him to bed. When he woke up the next morning with a hangover, he’d promise her anything, but then he’d go out again with the boys and come home swaying from side to side, covered with filth. And she’d go through the same thing all over again. She prayed for years for that man. I don’t know how the poor woman ever endured it. But she prayed on. She was one of those happy Christians, a little wisp of a woman.

"One day her drunken husband came to church, came down front, got down on his knees and bawled like a drunkard bawls—half self-pity, half something else. But God saved him. He became a model Christian and lived for God for some years afterward. And she walked around just as proud of him as an eagle that had hatched another. She’d brought him to God—hatched that fellow out by prayer and patience.

"I suppose there were times when she heard him snoring in the corner in his drunken sleep and wished she’d never met him. And I suppose there were times when she used to pity herself and say, ‘God, how do You expect me to hang on?’ But God whispered in her heart, Temptations are common to all, but I’m faithful, I won’t let you down. [1 Corinthians 10:13There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
See All...] The result was that not only did he get converted, but also a lot of the members of the family. And they’ll be in heaven with their parents one of these days. It just shows that when God says that He is faithful and will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, He means exactly that."